***URGENT!!!*** Wiki can no longer be edited

I pointed out a few weeks ago that the outdated captcha mechanism used by reprap.org to safeguard edits to the Wiki was being withdrawn. That has now happened. As a result, it is no longer possible to edit the reprap.org wiki.

This is serious because the GCodes page in the reprap.org wiki is regarded by many as the master document for the specification of GCodes recognised by 3D printer firmwares. As the lead developer for RepRapFirmware, I treat this page as the master document over and above the similar page we maintain at [duet3d.dozuki.com]. Without this reprap.org wiki page, there will be even more divergence between the GCodes supported by different firmwares than there has already been.

I know that reprap.org is managed by volunteer labour, but I am not even a moderator here so I am powerless to help. So please can the forum admins deal with this as soon as possible.

The reprap.org wiki is a valuable resource. If the wiki become stale, the whole reprap movement will suffer.

I logged in to the wiki and made a test edit to the Gcode page and it worked OK. I did not see a captcha though... perhaps this is because I have admin account for the wiki(?)

Are you saying that you cannot edit the wiki even when logged in?

I would like to help fix this, but unfortunately I don't know how.

To complicate things, the loosely organized collection of volunteers are currently working on transitioning the old server to a new server, so it may be better to wait for that to shake out before trying to update the captcha.

QuoteLocation on the server
The LocalSettings.php file is not a wiki page and you cannot access it with your web browser. Instead, it is a file in the file system of the server. Its contents are generated during the initial setup of the wiki and the resulting file must be copied on the server manually. The file must be located in the folder you installed MediaWiki into, on the same level with folders like includes/and skins/ and files like api.php. If this file is not there, the wiki will not work at all - if the wiki does work, the file is there. If you do not know where it is, you can enter a command such as find / -iname LocalSettings.php -print in a terminal window to locate it.

I logged in to the server and made a few edits to LocalSettings.php. I'm not sure if the changes will take effect immediately or if something needs to be restarted. Could someone please try and edit the wiki to see if these changes had any effect?

I know this forum topic is a month old now, but you shouldn't have any issues editing the wiki anymore. We're on a new server now and we fixed a lot of stuff along the way without changing the look and feel of the website.

Quotedc42
I know that reprap.org is managed by volunteer labour, but I am not even a moderator here so I am powerless to help. So please can the forum admins deal with this as soon as possible.

OMG, what a big lot of cheap excuses. Everybody asking for privileges to get some task done got them so far, usually within hours. Your whining is exactly the reason why its so hard to motivate volunteers. Volunteers gain nothing but flaming.

It's done now. Not because of your post, but despite of it.

BTW., if you want to do the wiki a favor, shell out all that RepRapFirmware special stuff into a separate page. The G-code page became pretty useless for normal firmwares.

Quotedc42
I know that reprap.org is managed by volunteer labour, but I am not even a moderator here so I am powerless to help. So please can the forum admins deal with this as soon as possible.

OMG, what a big lot of cheap excuses. Everybody asking for privileges to get some task done got them so far, usually within hours. Your whining is exactly the reason why its so hard to motivate volunteers. Volunteers gain nothing but flaming.

What an extraordinary outburst!

- I didn't ask for privileges
- I didn't whine
- I pointed out back in February that the Captcha mechanism used to protect the wiki form robotic edits was being shut down (see [reprap.org]). So the volunteers had a few months to deal with it.
- Nothing was done, so I started this thread when it became impossible to update wiki pages.

QuoteTraumflug
It's done now. Not because of your post, but despite of it.

So posting here is a waste of time?

QuoteTraumflug
BTW., if you want to do the wiki a favor, shell out all that RepRapFirmware special stuff into a separate page. The G-code page became pretty useless for normal firmwares.

The reason that the GCodes wiki page has become of limited value is because the Marlin devs no longer seem to care about keeping up up to date. They also seem quite happy to promote incompatibility between Marlin and other firmwares, by allocating an M-code for their own purposes when that code has already been documented in the wiki as having a completely different purpose in other firmware(s). When they do update the wiki, the descriptions they give are often so vague as to be useless. Many times I have had to wade through the Marlin source code to work out what Marlin actually does and what its response looks like, because neither the GCodes wiki page nor the Marlin docs has that information.

With RepRapFirmware we care about having good documentation. It should not be necessary for the devs of RepRapFirmware, Marlin, Repetier, Smoothieware, Teacup, Sailfish, Klipper etc. to have to go through the documentation for every other firmware to find out whether a M-code they propose to use is free, or what an existing M-code does. That's why it is important for 3D printer GCodes for all firmwares to be described in a single place. Similarly, if a user needs to know the differences in how two firmwares handle a particular code, that information should be in a single place. So I and the other devs of RepRapFirmware treat the GCodes wiki page here as the master document for GCodes supported by RepRapFirmware. The GCodes wiki page on the duet3d.com site is secondary.

As the wiki page itself says (and has done so from before I got involved with it):

QuoteGCodes wiki page
As many different firmwares exist and their developers tend to implement new features without discussing strategies or looking what others did before them, a lot of different sub-flavours for the 3D-Printer specific codes developed over the years. This particular page is the master page for RepRap. Nowhere in here should the same code be used for two different things; there are always more numbers to use... The rule is: add your new code here, then implement it.

Unfortunately human nature being what it is, the best procedures aren't always followed, so some multiple uses of the same code exist. The rule which should be followed is that later appearances of a code on this page (later than the original use of a code), are deprecated and should be changed, unless there is a good technical reason (like the general G-Code standard) why a later instance should be preferred. Note that the key date is appearance here, not date of implementation.

That's exactly your problem. Instead of volunteering you just jump around with bold letters and star-row ***panic***, trying to blame people for things you should do yourself.

Quotedc42
With RepRapFirmware we care about having good documentation.

Then bring that page back into a usable state. Right now it's like 80% RepRapFirmware-only, only small portions left on what's actually needed: G1, G92, M104, M0. Perhaps also a few helpers like G0, M105, M109/M116, M114. If your firmware/hardware can't figure on its own how to operate a printer and needs countless additional G-codes with literally hundreds of parameters: too bad. No need to let everybody else suffer from that need. G-code is simple, made for and usable by users typing on a keyboard.

First, I apologise for using ***URGENT*** in the title of this thread. As my previous warning that the wiki was going to become un-editable was acknowledged but otherwise apparently ignored for many weeks until the deadline passed, I felt I needed to be less restrained than I was in my previous thread. I guess I overdid it.

QuoteTraumflug

Quotedc42
- I didn't ask for privileges

That's exactly your problem. Instead of volunteering you just jump around with bold letters and star-row ***panic***, trying to blame people for things you should do yourself.

If you are looking for more volunteers, why didn't you say so? I have seen absolutely nothing anywhere on these forums to indicate that you want more volunteers to help administer the forum. A sticky post on the General section lists the volunteer admins, but says nothing about more being wanted or how to volunteer. Anyway, I'm volunteering! I've some experience with configuring and using Apache, PHP etc. but no experience of administering Phorum.

Quotedc42
With RepRapFirmware we care about having good documentation.

QuoteTraumflug
Then bring that page back into a usable state. Right now it's like 80% RepRapFirmware-only, only small portions left on what's actually needed: G1, G92, M104, M0. Perhaps also a few helpers like G0, M105, M109/M116, M114. If your firmware/hardware can't figure on its own how to operate a printer and needs countless additional G-codes with literally hundreds of parameters: too bad. No need to let everybody else suffer from that need. G-code is simple, made for and usable by users typing on a keyboard.

Your 80% figure is a huge exaggeration. Also, it's not my fault if it seems biased towards RRF because the Marlin devs don't add the new GCodes that they introduce, or provide very terse documentation when they do. The GCodes page is highly usable - the index makes it simple to look up any G- or M-Code. It is clearly a reference page and as such should list all G- and M-Codes used by 3D printer firmwares (or at least, the open-source ones). This is abundantly clear from the wiki page itself, in the quotation I gave before:

Quotereprap.org GCode wiki page
As many different firmwares exist and their developers tend to implement new features without discussing strategies or looking what others did before them, a lot of different sub-flavours for the 3D-Printer specific codes developed over the years. This particular page is the master page for RepRap. Nowhere in here should the same code be used for two different things; there are always more numbers to use... The rule is: add your new code here, then implement it.

As an example of why this page needs to be complete, today a user found that a slicer was generating a M100 code and wanted to know what it was meant to do. It should have been documented on the GCodes wiki page here... but it isn't.

If you are arguing for an easy-to-read page to introduce GCode to novice users, covering only a few essential GCodes, then let's have a page for that too.